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HS HOOPS: Alemany falls to Windward in semis

After returning all five starters from last season’s section-finalist team, Alemany High waited nearly a year for a chance to get back to a title game and perhaps win a boys’ basketball championship for the first time in the Mission Hills school’s 55-year history.
It’s not going to happen.

Alemany dug itself an early hole Friday was eliminated by Windward 79-67 in the Southern Section Div. IV-AA semifinals at Hart High.

The host Warriors (20-11) connected on 38.6 percent from the floor, including just 3 of 18 3-pointers, and they expended too much energy trying to catch up, first from an early 12-point deficit that was sliced to four, then from a 21-point second-half lead that was cut to nine.

Factor in a terrific performance by Windward, particularly Nick Stover (26 points, 19 rebounds) and Wesley Saunders (19 points), and Alemany just could not come back.

“Our shots just weren’t falling, and we were having a tough time with their transition game,” Alemany guard Max Guercy said. “They’re guards played great, too. It was a tough game for us.”

Saunders, a Harvard-bound senior, scored 13 points in the first half, as Windward (23-7) first began pulling away, but Alemany went on a 14-4 in the second quarter and eventually pulled to within four.

Windward began the third quarter with a 19-2 run to pull ahead 53-32, but against Alemany rallied, and in the fourth quarter a 15-5 run helped the Warriors close the gap to nine but never closer.

“Alemany did a good job of keeping the pressure on,” Saunders said. “We knew it was going to be a game of runs, so we tried to stay focused.”

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